Cmr Fuel Cells Share Discussion Threads

[asparks] 07/11/2006 08:33

because it should be of interest to anyone interested in fuel cells

[jonwig] 07/11/2006 08:29

Why did you post that?

[asparks] 07/11/2006 08:08

O/T - but fuel cells

RNS Number:6412L
PolyFuel Inc.
07 November 2006


7th November 2006

POLYFUEL SETS NEW RECORD FOR PORTABLE FUEL CELL PERFORMANCE

New, Ultra-thin 20-Micron Membrane Material Beats PolyFuel's - and Industry's -
Best by 40%

PolyFuel, Inc., a world leader in engineered fuel cell membranes, announces
today that it has developed a new, ultra-thin membrane capable of delivering
nearly 1.4 times the power density of any fuel cell membrane currently available.

The new 20-micron hydrocarbon membrane, when used in direct methanol fuel cells
(DMFC) being developed for micro power applications such as notebook computers
and cell phones, produces an unprecedented 200 milliwatts of peak power per
square centimeter of material at 70C. This level of power will allow a
significant reduction in the size, weight and cost of the fuel cell "stack,"
which is a key component of the fuel cell system. These compact fuel cell power
supplies are being developed by leading manufacturers to deliver the extended
runtimes that consumers desire from their portable electronic devices.

Fuel cell membranes, often called the "heart of the fuel cell," allow an
electrochemical reaction to occur that generates electricity directly from a
solution of fuel - in this case a combination of readily-available methanol -
and water. Previous records in this area were set by another PolyFuel
hydrocarbon membrane of 45 microns thickness, from which 140 milliwatts of peak
power per square centimeter was obtained at similar conditions. Other materials,
such as fluorocarbon membranes - considered by many to be at their "end of life"
stage - have not been able to demonstrate such high power while maintaining
acceptable efficiencies.

This new membrane also allows more than twice the amount of water to diffuse
through it than previous membranes, which simplifies the design of the fuel
cell. During operation, water in the fuel-water solution is consumed in the
electricity generating reaction on one side of the membrane (the anode) and
reappears as a by-product on the opposite side of the membrane (the cathode).
PolyFuel's 20-micron membrane allows the water to diffuse back from the cathode
to the anode, where it can participate again in the reaction. This
"molecular-level recycling" can eliminate the need for pumps and other
components of water recovery systems, which are especially problematic in
products intended for smaller applications such as cell phones or PDAs.

Samsung engineers indicated recently that the new membrane is a breakthrough
from their perspective. They recently conducted a rigorous series of tests on
every fuel cell membrane that they could find, and PolyFuel's 20 micron material
outperformed all of the others in terms of its combination of power and
efficiency. Samsung is among the leaders in consumer electronics in trying to
find alternatives to extend the runtime for portable electronic devices, which,
with the rapid rise in consumer-demanded features such as video, are becoming
increasingly power hungry - beyond the capabilities of even the best available
batteries.

The unfavorable publicity that lithium-ion batteries have recently received due
to ignition whilst in use in laptops; and the resultant high-profile product
recalls are only hastening the search for alternative long runtime power
supplies. Micro power fuel cells are viewed by many as the best, and
increasingly viable, solution.

Said one of Samsung's Principal Engineers, "A fuel cell can never deliver too
much power, or be too efficient. We expect that the new material, plus the
strong support that PolyFuel is providing, will enable us to achieve a new
performance milestone."

The market for handheld devices alone is estimated at over one billion units per
year, and includes mobile phones, handheld industrial computers, printers,
scanners, and various communications and surveillance devices used in homeland
security applications. Each of these requires a reliable, long-running power
source.

Because of this demand, coupled with recent improvements in fuel cell design and
manufacturing technologies, it is widely believed that a commercial portable
fuel cell market is imminent. A 2006 report from Frost and Sullivan predicted
that sales of consumer portable fuel cells will reach over 38 million units by
2009, with commercial product introductions projected to begin in the 2007 to
2008 timeframe. Virtually every major consumer electronics company and battery
company worldwide has extensive, internal fuel cell development efforts
underway.

Jim Balcom, Chief Executive Officer of PolyFuel, commented: "The characteristics
of PolyFuel's hydrocarbon membrane chemistry allow for significantly improved
flexibility in the design of portable fuel cells. One of the most requested
features has been for a thinner membrane that retains PolyFuel's excellent
methanol crossover, water crossover and durability characteristics, while
meeting aggressive, new fuel cell performance targets. We are pleased that we
have been able to engineer a specific membrane to meet these requests."

-Ends-


For further information please contact:

Hogarth Partnership Limited [phone]
Nick Denton / Sara Gelfand / Sarah Macleod



About PolyFuel

PolyFuel (www.polyfuel.com) is the world leader in engineered membranes that
provide significantly improved performance in direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC)
and hydrogen fuel cells, particularly for portable electronic and automotive
applications. The state of the art of fuel cells is essentially that of the
membrane, and PolyFuel's best in class, hydrocarbon-based membranes enable a new
generation of fuel cells that for the first time can deliver on the long-awaited
promise of clean, long-running, and cost-effective portable power.

PolyFuel has an unmatched capability to rapidly translate the system-level
requirements of fuel cell designers and manufacturers into engineered polymer
nano-architectures. Such capability - based on PolyFuel's over 150 combined
years of fuel cell experience, world-class polymer nano-architects, and a
fundamental patent position covering more than 23 different inventions - also
makes PolyFuel an essential development partner and supplier to any company
seeking to advance the state of the art in fuel cells. Polymer electrolyte fuel
cells built with PolyFuel membranes can be smaller, lighter, longer-running,
more efficient, less expensive and more robust than those made with other
membrane materials.

PolyFuel is working with most of the world's leading portable fuel cell system
developers, the majority of whom are household brand name consumer electronics
manufacturers. To-date, every company that has completed their evaluation
testing of PolyFuel's membrane has gone on to purchase PolyFuel's membrane
products. Several of the largest Japanese and Korean consumer electronics
companies rank PolyFuel's membrane as the best portable fuel cell membrane
available in the world today. To date, Sanyo, NEC and now Samsung have disclosed
they are using PolyFuel membranes.

PolyFuel was spun out of SRI International (formerly the Stanford Research
Institute) in 1999, after 14 years of applied membrane research. The company is
based in Mountain View, California, and is publicly listed on the AIM stock
exchange in London.




This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

END
MSCFGMGMRVFGVZM

[jonwig] 31/10/2006 11:21

Hello Shavian.

You're right that CMF have not been mentioned in the context of recent discussion after the Stern Report.
I think that's because "we want it and we want it now" is the theme - what companies are on the cusp of delivering low emission technology?

In the fuel cell universe, CWR are on everyone's list as they expect to commercialise soon and have the partnerships to help deliver on that. What they will offer, too, is very visible reductions in emissions and consumer energy costs.

As for CMF, we're a lot further away from the goal, and replacing batteries with fuel cells isn't (yet) an urgent priority. And anyway, achieving the hoped-for power densities is by no means a certainty.

Similarly, ITM haven't caught the imagination recently and regained their former glory - again, commercialisation is so far off.

Paradoxically, a fuel cell company which is actually in the marketplace (VLR) has seen its shares at all-time lows just recently!

Coming back to CMF, I hope we get technical updates before too long, as I was quite put out by the summer drop in the share price!

By the way, I hold just CWR and CMF in this sector. I'm not all that keen on holding more companies, as I think there will be more losers than winners, and a wider exposure will just lead to a stodgy overall outcome.

[shavian] 31/10/2006 10:27

CMR seems to be left behind in the current rush of enthusiasm for green power stocks in the wake of Stern. Jonwig: can you summarise where we are with CMR, please?

[jonwig] 24/10/2006 13:14

millsig - it's just the Interim Report from August I think: can download it from the website.

Post #112 - it's free, I suppose!

[millsig] 24/10/2006 11:29

News in today apparently, but the link doesn't seem to work...

[t0pgrader] 24/10/2006 10:06

I would dismiss it. There's nothing in the document that indicates any original or creative thinking. In fact there's nothing here to suggest anything other than a cut and paste approach to "research."

[elgordo] 24/10/2006 09:24

Fairly disappointing rankings, which - from my biased perspective as a shareholder - do not fully reflect the text. However, I wonder how much thought (rather than simple aggregation of existing material) goes into such a report, when they show Gordon Edge as Chairman?

[jonwig] 24/10/2006 08:34

Summary report on CMF just issued:

[jonwig] 19/10/2006 16:10

Shares Mag today has some background to Commercial Officer appointment:

The potential route to market is something that often leaves
investors scratching their head when looking at fuel cell
companies but CMR Fuel Cells' (CMR:AIM) appointment of
Stephen Barlow as chief commercial officer is good news for the
company and makes a clear statement of intentions.
CMR says that its recent achievements of some technical
milestones have given it confidence it can develop its product for
the portable consumer electronics industry, which is expected to
have a fuel cell market of some $2 billion by 2011. It also says it has
received commercial interest from Asian electronics companies
and therefore needs a dedicated person to manage the interest.
Barlow has a wealth of experience in the portable electronics
business and was vice-president of sales and marketing at private
company Antenova, where he forged relationships with Sony
Ericsson, Dell and Siemens.
Although the shares have remained static at 170.5p, any
announcements relating to sales or agreements with Asia
partners should give them a boost.

[millsig] 12/10/2006 12:55

Thanks Jonwig - It's been a while since we had any significant news. Looks from this as though real progress is being made. Expecting a technical update on key performance milestones before year end too.

[jonwig] 12/10/2006 10:03

CMR Fuel Cells plc, the company seeking to commercialise fuel cell technology for portable electronics, appointed Stephen Barlow as Chief Commercial Officer.

Stephen is a commercial professional with over 15 years experience in global sales, marketing and senior management. He has a great depth of experience within the portable consumer electronics industry in which he has procured sales approaching $100m. Most recently, Stephen was VP Sales & Marketing at antenna developer, Antenova, where he was responsible for commercialising the company's unique technology. During his tenure, Stephen secured substantial revenues from global OEMs including Sony, Ericsson, Dell and Siemens. (11/10/06)

[jonwig] 07/8/2006 07:13

I must admit to being troubled by the weakness in the share price over the summer, but today's interims contain no unpleasant surprises, and I wasn't aware of the scope of this:

* Successfully completed an initial stack evaluation project with a major
Korean OEM looking at powering a personal digital assistant (PDA) with a
miniature direct methanol fuel cell

* Entered commercial discussions with Japanese OEMs in portable electronic
applications as diverse as laptop computers, electric wheelchairs, musical
devices and PDAs



NB: new website design, etc.

[jonwig] 06/7/2006 07:35

No RNS for this, but looks as though they are developing useful partnerships:

Publication Date:04-July-2006
08:00 AM US Eastern Timezone
Source: Cambridge Network

A pioneering Cambridge company that is developing revolutionary new fuel cell technology to power a diverse range of portable electronics products is to target the strategically important Japanese market with Asia Pacific market access specialists Intralink.

CMR Fuel Cells Limited is a UK developer of fuel cell stacks for portable and small stationary power generation applications, delivering massively reduced size, cost and weight when compared with conventional fuel cell stacks. These advances are critical for fuel cells to compete with existing batteries, and CMR's products are widely expected to make mass market fuel cells commercially viable for the first time.

Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that convert fuel - such as hydrogen and methanol - directly into electricity at higher efficiency than internal combustion engines. They have the potential for higher power storage capacity than lithium-ion batteries and to become the dominant technology for automotive engines, power stations and power packs for portable electronic devices such as laptop computers.

CMR recently completed a landscape initiative with Intralink to establish the scale of the market opportunity in Japan, where there is significant and growing demand for power sources to support multi-featured electronic portable devices.

Having identified significant joint development opportunities with electronics and power supply companies, CMR Fuel Cell's Chief Executive, John Halfpenny, has confirmed his company's intention to work through Intralink's Surrogate Sales ProgramT to develop the business potential: 'Notwithstanding my own past experience of working extensively in Japan, I like Intralink's surrogate model as it provides me with the transparency, flexibility and scalability which I feel are very important to working in a complex but highly rewarding market like Japan,' he said.

Intralink CEO James Lawson commented: 'Working with CMR Fuel Cells on scoping out the scale of the opportunity for their technology, we quickly established that there was significant demand for alternative power sources across a range of different industries.

'The fact that leading portable electronic device manufacturers are now making investments in this area underlines the huge potential fuel cells have in powering sophisticated electronic devices. Working with Intralink's Surrogate Sales ProgramT will take CMR to the next stage in building a significant presence in this all-important market.'

About CMR Fuel Cells
CMR Fuel Cells plc is a high growth, UK AIM-listed developer of fuel cell stacks for portable and small stationary power generation applications. The Company plans to become a leading supplier of fuel cell products, based on its simple but revolutionary patented stack architecture which delivers longer run-time and lower costs than conventional fuel cell stacks.

CMR's unique architecture can be applied in a range of fuel cell applications including portable electronics, combined heat and power and automotive to deliver significant improvements in power density performances using a range of chemistries.

CMR is initially targeting the consumer electronics industry where there is sustained and growing demand for smaller, cheaper, longer running power solutions for portable electronics devices based on direct methanol fuel cells. This demand is being driven by the increasing power requirements of portable electronics devices which have outgrown incremental improvements in the performances of traditional battery chemistries. As a result, consumer frustration with short 'run times' is compelling the electronics industry to develop and deploy suitable alternatives for power delivery.

It is widely accepted that direct methanol fuel cells represent an ideal solution to the power requirements of portable devices and are also capable of eliminating the need to recharge devices by having an interchangeable fuel cartridge system equivalent of instant recharging.

In 2005 CMR were:

* Winners of the 2005 Carbon Trust Overall Innovator of the year award
* Winners of the 2005 Carbon Trust Individual and Small Businesses award
* Selected as a Red Herring Top 100 Europe company - (previous Red Herring winners include Google and eBay)
* Selected by Harvard Business School as one of 25 companies 'most likely to change our world by 2010'
* Selected by the World Economic Forum as a Technology Pioneer for 2006


About Intralink
Established in 1990, Intralink has a proven record of achieving accelerated market access and revenue traction for venture-backed technology companies - in electronics, IT, software and semiconductors - across the automotive, drug discovery, consumer electronics, construction materials and telecoms sectors.

With offices in the UK, Tokyo and Shanghai, Intralink works for US and European companies seeking success in the strategically important Chinese and Japanese markets.

[don muang] 30/6/2006 20:31

......said Zebardi.

'down,down' said SIT,
'suspended' said EPE
'?????????' said PYF AGM

[jonwig] 27/6/2006 16:39

millsig, post #100.

Sorry I didn't go further in my reply post, as I've just realised.

Basically, as I see it, Acta are developing a particular family of non-platinum catalysts (HYPERMEC) for a whole range of fuel cell types, ethanol in particular, but also direct methanol(DMFC).

CMF are concerned with fuel cell architecture (mixed reactant) and are also working with non-platinum catalysts. At this stage, they are focussing on DMFCs. This will mean smaller, cheaper stacks for use predominantly in small electronic devices, whilst (after a quick search) ethanol cells appear to be aimed at the transportation market.

So there might not be much overlap/competition here.
You quote HYPERMEC typically with an areal power density of 55mW/cm², and CMF have a target of 40mW/cm². But, of course, we don't know how big the typical HYPERMEC stacks are (at least I don't!), and CMF's 2007 volumetric density target for stacks is 750W/l.

According to the CMF prospectus DMFCs typically operate in the range 30-130mW/cm², with the best performance from platinum catalysts. So areal power density is just one of a number of factors involved, size and cost being competing ones.

I must say, I'm a bit perturbed at the slump in CMF's share price since the very positive announcement at the beginning of this month. Not that selling has been heavy, but it's been pretty persistent.

[shavian] 19/6/2006 14:42

I got out of CMR at 225p and have been assessing whther or not to come back in at present levels. I've just gone back in to ITM which seems to be the closest comparator along with ACTA (which I also left in mid-May). I'm not all that comfortable now with CMR -it seems very "blue sky" at the moment and will take a while for confidence to be restored. It's applications seem limited to the micro-end, whereas ITM and ACTA's electrolysers and catalysts have much wider industrial applications. ITM seems much closer to commercialisation, or at least to some big deals. I'm steering clear of CMR for the time being and willing to be proved wrong.

[elgordo] 14/6/2006 22:23

A couple of new (8 June) "help wanted" listings on the Forming Relationships page of the website -



Sobering reminder of the early stage nature of CMR, though as has been previously posted, they are tageting mass production in 2008, so let's hope the requisite partners come knocking!

[jonwig] 14/6/2006 07:13

millssig.
Size is the thing for CMR: their technology is targeted at extreme miniaturisation of the stacks.
I've been too busy lately to go back to the prospectus and look at the targets. But I know there are technical problems for CMR to overcome - this was always clear. hence a pretty risky investment!

[millsig] 12/6/2006 22:56

A fair comparison?

From CMR's technical update on 05/06/06:
"Chief technology officer Michael Priestnall said the technical team is well
placed to reach its 2006 target of volumetric stack power density of
500watts/litre and its subsequent 2007 cell and stack targets of 40mW/cm2 and
750watts/litre."

From ACTA's 2005 Annual Report:
"Power output at room temperature for a HYPERMEC-catalysed ethanol fuel cell is comparable to a platinum catalysed methanol fuel cell 55mW/cm2"

Comments, anyone?

[millsig] 10/6/2006 22:27

Another repeat of the story; no additional comment, but here's the link anyway:

[jonwig] 05/6/2006 13:17

Quick to pick up the story; not much additional comment:

[jonwig] 05/6/2006 07:23

Progress RNS should make for a nice mark-up this morning:

CMR Fuel Cells Plc is pleased to announce that its research and development
programme has met and exceeded a significant performance milestone ahead of
previously anticipated timescales as outlined in the Company's AIM admission
document. This is a tangible and important step towards achieving commercial
viability of the Company's patented technology, which the Board believes is a
strong indication that CMR is on track to deliver the low cost, high
performance fuel cell stacks currently demanded by the portable electronics
industry.

More here, or in header link: